


a sort of tender curiosity

by billspilledquill



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/M, Gen, M/M, Trans Male Character, gatsby is trans thank you for your time, nick likes pumpkin spice latte it’s horrible, the coffee shop au exactly 0 person wanted
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-06-17 18:35:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15467487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/billspilledquill/pseuds/billspilledquill
Summary: There is a new coffee shop in West Egg. The owner is probably from the mafia, but hey, a quite fashionable one.Or: Gatsby gets a little drunk on wine, disillusionment, and is quietly disgusted at pumpkin spice latte (and not so quietly fond of Nick).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> THE COFFEE SHOP AU NO ONE ASKED FOR I AM SORRY

 

It started small as a giant, overbearing party with intoxicated people in a coffee shop.

Gatsby isn’t new to joy, he just can’t seem to grab it the moment he should feel it. When he makes coffee, when that cappuccino latte gives way to a nice cloud of cream and diabetes. Instead, he looks at the third wheel car that is parked outside his shop with smoking gas and hospital sirens and now, America.

What joy.

“Miss Baker, with all due respect,” he says to the coffee in front of him. His hand tightens around it. “Why in the world are you even here.”

His tall, tall friend turns, all teeth. Her dress swirls in the dim light of the shop. This isn’t even close to be a family-friendly business, she or him. “What,” she answers, taking a tread of hair between her fingers. “I am not allowed to come to your party that you host, ah,” she pretends to think. Bastard. “I don’t know– twice a week?”

“You told me that you hated parties.”

“It’s true for the small ones,” she blinks, clearly trying to remember. “But the big parties, they are intimate, you know? People fuck wherever they please because they think no one will know, it’s funny. It happened once or twice or thirty times in your parties, Gatsby.”

“It’s spring time,” he hears himself say, feeling the bitter taste of coffee and caffeine bursting in his tongue. Also, the music is loud. “I like to please my customers.”

“I am still pretty sure that your grandfather was a con-man or something, I mean.” She gestures a little in the air, elegant as always after a sip of drink or two. “These parties sure ain’t cheap. And you look like, what,” she stops, “a– billionaire, with your half-tied shoes and all that jazz.”

He couldn’t help but stealing a glance down on the floor. What. His newly polished shoes from Milan are just fine. They don’t even have laces in the first place. He tries not to glare at her and fails completely.

Jordan is laughing.

“Relax, Bonnie,” she says. “I’m just joking.”

“My outfit is suitable for a party like this, miss Baker.”

“If you have paid any attention at all,” she says. “You will realize that everyone came for your free shots and music, not you, _mister Gatsby_.”

“Well,” he shrugs, careful not to make too much movement. “Do you need a drink?”

“Why yes, a coffee, please,” she holds one finger, then stares at it with a wonder that terrifies him a little. Then she points it at his chest, saying with a twist of tongue, “for you, I mean, my good sir.”

“You are drunk,” he remarks. He is standing behind the counter, self-conscious, tries not to shift his weight to somewhere safer, somewhere else.

“You are never drunk,” she says, tilts her pretty head, her golden rings on her ears. “I think that’s the only thing that’s keeping you from turning this shop into a sex toy auction.”

“Definitely drunk,” he takes for himself a chair, sits down before he can think better of it. “Please, if you would so kind as to leave me by myself and–“ let me wait until this goddamn hour blessedly slips by– “join your other equally wasted friends.”

She swoons a little – or at least he thinks so in the blurs of yellow and red lights - puts a delicate hand on the counter. “I have known you for a couple months, mister Gatsby.”

“Everyone has.”

“Yeah, you kind of made this place famous, which is what you are aiming for.” It’s not a question, and he is glad that he does not need to provide an answer.

He sighs. The lights blind him temporarily. “What are you implying?”

“I’m saying that you should totally go to a gay bar. You look terribly sexually repressed.”

“Thank you for your concern, miss Baker, but–“

“Don’t worry,” she waves her hand. “Happens to everyone.”

This is why no discussion can be happy with drunks. He stands up, takes a tray, prays that he can be mistaken for a butler, and goes into the crowd. It will be better that way. He doesn’t hear Jordan’s soft snores on the counter table.

He faces the window, the tray feels heavy in his hands. The music is only getting louder, and he almost wishes to go to sleep. But his eyes roam the place, searching desperately before succumbing to his own will to just shut this down and end this cycle of business failures.

The lights are way too small and bright. He should call the technicians tomorrow morning. He turns his rings around and around, distracted. This isn’t mouse and cat, he reminds himself. This isn’t a game.

“I heard that Gatsby is a gambler in Russia,” Someone exclaims and brings him back to reality. “He got like, crazy rich, and decided that being Jesus of free food is a good thing for everyone.”

“Fool,” her friend shoves him playfully. “He has connections with the Russians because he was a spy during the war. You gotta keep up with the news, Nicolas.”

“Wait, wait,” another cuts in. “I thought he was a mafia boss?”

The crowd gathers. Some claims that he is dead and this is his twin brother. Some claims that they despise rich people. Some claims that they are head over heels for him. And Gatsby simply laid the claim that he has a terrible, terrible headache that will not go away for this remaining session of Guess Who.

He takes a snack from his own tray, a white truffle. He closes his eyes, a little peace for a not at all swift, nor quick victory. He stills.

Perhaps, some, not all, touches his shoulder and has the bluest eyes he has ever seen.

“Ah,” the man says, his hand leaving his shoulder, hanging awkwardly in the air. “Sorry. I was wondering where I could speak with mister Gatsby?”

“It’s of no matter, sir,” he says, turning his ring over and over again. It hurts his finger. “Dare I ask why?”

The man arches an eyebrow, his eyes shine under the yellow, making them green. “He sent me an invitation. I learnt that apparently it is not common of the host.” He says. “I mostly want to pay homage for the good man for such... a wonderful night.”

“You are enjoying yourself?”

“Yeah, yeah,” the man replies, and in a moment, “yeah.”

He stares. The man looks just as intoxicated as Jordan.

And isn’t that wonderful.

He tries to remember with his headache why he would invite such a person to the shop. That man looks like a rich boy that just got sneak out of university, with too much money in hand and too little to lose. Why would he personally write for someone like this. And— he remembers when the man blinks. The fluttering of his lashes let him remember.

 _Buchanan_.

“I,” he stops, knowing that he can’t stutter now, not ever. “I will bring you to him, old sport. What is your name?”

They skid around the room, mostly because he doesn’t know what else to do. Where else he can lead the man when the one he’s searching is painfully lost? The man ruffles his brown curls sheepishly. “Nicolas. Just call me Nick,” he says.

“Sorry,” he says, sincere for a whole minute. “I, ah, was talking about your family name.”

The man—Nicolas– smiles. “In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father had said to me not to judge characters. You certainly make me think of a totally innocent man asking for strangers’ last names.”

“...Your father really told you that?”

“Nope,” he says, popping the ‘o’ in the word like a bubble just burst. “He just told me to stop being a little shit and stop complaining about his mustache. Which was horrible, by the way.”

“It sounded better the first time you said it.”

Nick closes his eyes. Hums. “Sure it does.”

“Ah, well,” he tips his head, thinking, maybe because he is drunk, or because that is clever enough to see how stupid Gatsby is being. “I guess my father was right. I’m being difficult. The name’s Carraway, sir.”

Carraway. Nicolas Carraway. Buchanan.

“Old–“ he starts, tries again. “Did you believed any of the rumors you heard?”

“Those people?” He points at the crowd. “I am sure they are neither all true or all false and apocryphal.” He comes closer, reeking of alcohol. “I personally believe that he is a pirate hiding among the livings.”

This is the most ludicrous thing he has ever heard. Which is, by all means, saying a lot. He trails. Stops. Carraway almost hit himself.

“Why did you stopped?” He says, in a voice he assumes is whining.

“We...arrived.”

“Is this Gatsby’s room,” he says, “or you are just the worst flirt in the century?”

“In the best of possible worlds, it would be both, old sport,” he says before biting his tongue and sets it on fire. Stop calling people that. “But it’s neither,” he answers himself before Carraway can. “ I am Gatsby.”

A silent inquiry is made. Gatsby confirms it by staying dead.

“You, you— the coffee millionaire?” Carraway’s words slur, and seem to be trying very, very hard to get them out of his mouth. The man blinks too rapidly for him to see if the red light would make his eyes green again.

“Your family-friendly neighbor,” he says.

 

*

 

Jordan is not pleased in the morning.

The costumer line is getting long in the early work-hour. His coworker says, respectably enough, that Chicago is calling.

“If they are calling again for some trade wars with coffee beans, say that I am all for it,” he whispers to the man with the yellow glasses. He suspects that his coworkers are all hipsters. Jordan is looking at him. The line is only getting longer. “But if they offer awful deals like opening chain stores, then please gently tell them to go off.”

Owl-Eyes nods once, his glasses sparkling with some unknown substance that Gatsby definitely, absolutely does not want to know, and is gone from his sight, leaving him with a bunch of sleep-deprived college students, and, not exclusively hopefully, with Jordan.

“What,” he begins, can’t get another sound out for a moment, “can I get for you, miss Baker?”

“You didn’t tell him what you meant when you wrote him a damn invitation and now he is confused and can’t stop judging me for whatever I am doing.” She crosses her arms, ready for a fight. The line behind her lets out a collective groan.

“Mister Carraway?”

“Yeah, you really carried him away with his thoughts, did you.”

Gatsby decides not to comment on that horrible pun. “You could have just said coffee like any decent person at seven in the morning, miss Baker.”

“I am dark, bitter and too hot for you,” she says, putting her brow on the counter table. “All reach to the conclusion that I am a shot of expresso. So, no, I won’t go unless I have an explanation.”

“What,” he snaps despite himself. They all haven’t slept for the past night. “Why do you care? Your boyfriend certainly didn’t come to you in tears to chide about me, I’d hope.”

“I am–“

He looks one last time at the discontent line behind her and grabs her gently by the arm, pulling her close. “Now,” he says. “It’s not a time to cause a scene. I promise that I will talk about that when I finish my shift, okay?

She yanks her hand away, surprisingly elegant when she is not half limping with a bottle of wine. “Aren’t you in charge?” She asks. “Why would a monopolistic job creator like you would do a mere barista’s job?”

But she walks away a little farther away from him as he nods, confirming his promise. She mumbles loud enough for everyone to hear, her heels clicking on the floor like a far away telegraph, “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and those who are tired of waiting for a coffee and ready to excommunicate you when you are done.”

The grandma who walks up to him for orders whispers compassionately, “Is your girlfriend jealous?”

“No and no, madam,” he says politely. “She is just the personal enemy of god. Do you wish for a cold tea, madam?”

He finds it slightly unsettling that the old woman asks for a whiskey instead.

 

*

 

His father calls, sometimes, to announce him time and time again, that his mother is dead.

Not he thinks that he’d forgotten it, that tie that supposedly linked them, but his mother was an febrile thing, and his father an even more fragile one, that he likens himself to deserve more than that for some kind of moral destiny he is poised to.

Still, when he calls, he is just glad that it is not Chicago again.

“Jasmine,” his father’s weak voice trembles like waves, “you haven’t been sending money for me and your poor mother this month, my darling child.”

“Mother is dead, dad,” he reminds him now and time again. A sob comes through the telephone, and he sighs. “I’m sorry, never mind what I said. How much do you need?”

When the connection eventually fades out, and he turns back to work, he wonders if the shakings are only an afterthought, or a precursor for what is to come. He cleans his hand without bothering reaching for the soap, absentmindedly watching the gold in his ring glistening under water. He looks up to the mirror, his face scattered with ridges that he forgot for the convenience of forgetting. God is dead, I never existed.

Jordan Baker waits for him in a corner of the golden shop with a home-made coffee cup and a middle finger.

 

*

 

He tells her whatever that needs to be told for the plan to work.

There isn’t a plan, at least not in the beginning, he thinks. He was trying to tell a love story, but it ends up being too rush and too fawn to be even considered attraction. How desperate you can be when you can’t express feelings with anything but love.

“I can’t say that I love her,” he amends. “But I felt a tender curiosity.”

“More like a horny fantasy.” She sips her coffee, her eyes interested. “Your romantic bullshit should be used at those poetry parties that you throw from time to time. Nice slam, by the way.”

Yes, yes, so. The story, Jordan. He met her at a party. She was charming, beautiful, etc. And he fell in love. Then he went away. And he wants her back. Exceptionally exquisite. A classic love story. Five stars.

And, like the Vikings, she got married to a hairy old bastard and had a daughter. Not like the Vikings at all, actually. So, um, one star.

Now here is the magic trick. Nicolas Carraway is Daisy Buchanan’s cousin twice removed.

“So,” Jordan lifts one finger, “you want to bang a married woman.”

“Yes,” He says.

“You want Nick, his cousin, to encourage Daisy to cheat on her husband.”

He nods, tilts his head a little. He can’t understand why she hasn’t ask him about his plan yet. Maybe she is smart enough to figure it out herself.

“She has a daughter, Gatsby.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “I will not be forgetting it.”

Jordan sighs in her coffee. He doesn’t want to hear her ranting about his shop’s coffee tasting like left over Bud Lime. “You are a terrible man, you know that.”

“I believe that it is a yes for helping me.”

Her light hair contracts nicely with her eyes, greying in the edges. She is young, she has time. I am young too, he reminds himself. “I don’t think that’s what you want. You come to this town to sell coffee, yet this is a bar. What can possibly tell me that you won’t Napoleon this shit up and change everything at the last minute.”

“I won’t,” he says.

“Smooth talker,” she replies. Her fingers reach to slightly grab his face. “I don’t why I trust you,” she says, trying to discern something in his face. His hands go limp. “Some of that extraordinary gift for hope that Nick talked about, perhaps.”

“What are you talking about,” he lets out a stuttered breath, stills.

“Nothing,” she taps his cheek twice, and stands up, grabbing that coffee cup labelled straight as a spaghetti when it’s wet, and says, “I will give you Nick’s number.”

“Would you please explain this to him,” he says, tired. “I couldn’t possibly explain this to another human being again.”

“As if your matter of speech is eloquent enough for that,” she says. “Sure, it will do.”

She stops at the front door when she turns. Gatsby’s break time is up anyway. She smiles, “Nick said that you were cute.”

And she goes away, wind lifting her short hair in the thin air, vanishes like so many before her.

 

*

 

Daisy was complementing his dress when he first loved her.

It was in those balls, with all their gallantry and corruption, that he fell in love. A quickening of breath, a flutter. A butterfly flies and Daisy is asking him where did he find such a beautiful gown to wear tonight.

It felt all too heavy, his hips, his shoulders, his breast. The jewelries wear him down, and lipstick looks like blood. He felt like a clown, but he loved her as a magician loved his tricks, with secrets only he knew.

She was there, dancing in the room, her father was a businessman, she said. I don’t know what he is doing all day, I am so very bored here, Jasmine. And she would take his hands and say, you look like a rose, Jasmine, has everyone told you that?

He kissed her once, he kissed her twice, then like butterflies, fluttered down and down to the withering white of winter. He is an artist painting her a thousand colors at once, and he loved her as would a poet would be in love with a sonnet, not the woman behind it, but the words, the words, the words.

I hope you could call me James when I touch you, he thinks, so he doesn’t touch her. I love you. A tender curiosity for life.

Check mate. The queen is down. The king is dead, long live the king.

 

*

 

He learns a thing or two about Nick, turns out.

Carraway likes pumpkin spice latte, much to his disgust as a coffee maker and as a human with some soul left to his heart. He still makes one for him every time he came, though, for courtesy, and something else.

He seems to appreciate enough. “It’s on the house,” he says. “Nobody orders spice latte in late spring anyway.”

“Well, I like it,” Carraway says, smiling with gratitude. “Thanks, Gatsby.”

When he has time, they would sit in a quiet corner and talk about obnoxious things. There’s something somewhere, lurking in the back of his mind, Daisy and her cousin’ eyes, blue, coloring the palette the way of the sky. They would have car rides in more obnoxious yellow cars, and Carraway listens and doesn’t believe his lies.

“You want to become a writer,” he says to him one day. The wheels sticking his hands in a hot summer day. “Do you have a plan for a novel?”

Carraway is silent for a moment, before going along, “No,” he says. “Though I am more into memoirs and biographies, I write decent short stories.”

“Imagine,” he laughs. “You have a great enough life for a autobiography, old sport. I would name it, The Summer of Twenty.”

“Why,” Nick replies, sharing a laugh in the warm air. “I am no longer twenty.”

“No, you see,” he focuses on the road, the fast beat of the radio. Another car full of people is beside them, some standing with champagne in hand. “It’s a metaphor. Aren’t writers supposed to be big on that?”

“You should refrain from doing so in the title,” Carraway replies, eyes also roaming on the other side of the bridge. “The readers will just get confused. If I name it Alexander The Terrible, no one will know who I am talking about.”

“Well, what do you think, then?”

“Ummm. Daisy In The Woods, how about that.”

“I will personally throw you out of the car if you tease me again, mister Carraway,” he says.

Nick chuckles, throwing his head back on the passenger seat. “I gave you her Facebook account to chat, not to stalk.”

“I don’t know how to start a conversation with her,” he admits. “Why couldn’t you just invite her to the shop for the hell of it, old sport?”

“You just keep staring at that green dot on the search bar as if it’s some kind of obscure symbolism, how can someone be so—“

“Please don’t bring your writer’s affiliation in the context, old sport.“

“Call me that again,” he says, “and I am not helping you.”

“Mister Carraway,” he tries to leave out the exasperation out of the sentence. “I am willing to compromise for this offer.”

“What?”

“I heard that you are looking for a publisher,” he continues, ignoring the outburst. “I have a friend who is known in the publishing business and can even grant you an agent, if you desire one. Your book will be print with my friend’s—“

“Woah, hold up,” Carraway says, posing a hand on his arm. He shifts his weight. “I mean, sure, that sounds...great, but I haven’t written anything yet.”

He arches an brow, “Well, if so, I could pay you for every draft you write, and—“

“Yeah, please don’t,” he cuts him off. “No wonder why people assume that you are from the dark pits.” He says, his hand still warm on his bare arm, “I am doing this as a friend’s favor, and if you want to repay me, then please just drop the old sport elitist tradition and call me by my real name.”

“But mister Carraway—“

“Nick.”

“Nick,” he says. His arm receives a gentle squeeze as praise. “This is not how I settle matters, Nick. You could at least accept some kind of payment–“

“I am inviting her to your place next week, don’t panic.”

“But, Nick,” he says, his heart already hammering in his chest. “Ah, would you like to buy a dinner for your girlfriend? I can arrange that, if you wish.”

They have arrived. He stoops down to reach to the key. Nick looks at him in silence.

“... _Girlfriend_ ,” Nick says.

He nods, tries not to fumble with his hands. “Miss Baker–“

“She’s the gayest disaster I have ever encountered,” he says. “See, I am judging again. My father must be turning in his grave.”

“Ah,” he says. “Then.”

“Here,” Nick says, kissing both of his cheeks in an offhanded manner. “Here’s how we do proper greetings in France. Thanks for the ride.”

Gatsby suspects that Nick never went to France for the life of him. You don’t actually put your lips on their faces like waffles.

Maybe that’s why his face feels like half-grilled waffles; not hot enough to burn, but it’s definitely starting to hurt.

 

*

 

“No offense,” Nick says, full offense in his voice, “but maybe you should not buy a whole flower shop for this very extremely casual coffee date. You are making romantic heroes ashamed of themselves. Are you planning to propose?”

The shop is closed today. Well, labelled close anyway. “No, but I could,” he says. “Kill two rocks with one bird or something.”

Nick doesn’t quite laugh, but it’s close. “Please tell me that you have not watched like, ten different kind of British romantic comedy.”

“I did not,” he says, closing his Ipad hiding beneath the counter.

He stands up, just to fix his tuxedo a little better, but lets out a cry of pain when his head hits the three years old clock. A fucking _clock_.

“Don’t just get hit by time,” Nick says. “Help me with this package of literal flowers that just arrived.”

“I thought irony is a writer’s lie,” he mumbles, and goes to him anyway.

He looks about the room, satisfied and not at all having a twisted stomach ready to come on terms with his eating habits. If Chicago was calling, that would have made it, and he would have thrown up in the flower carpet that he has brought for the occasion.

Nick looks a little miserable, to say the least. “I don’t want to be part of this anymore. All of you should be wearing flower pattern dresses and start a tea party down the harbor and I can sleep peacefully after that.”

He looks at his pink tuxedo, thinking about dresses, tries not to feel uncomfortable. “That wouldn’t be proper, Nick. If you wish to get some sleep, upstairs is my room, you are free to use it.”

“Only you would be linking your shop and your big mansion,” he says. “I will respectfully decline the invitation, thank you. The great Gatsby’s bed is not for me to climb.”

He doesn’t have time to dwell on what he just heard that a thunder is heard. Rain.

“It’s raining,” he says. “We should probably just cancel it.”

Nick sighs. He walks up to him and says, “Here,” he takes his hands. “Does it feel better?”

The tremblings stop, turning them into soft buzzing of minds, “I can’t repeat the past,” he says. “But history repeats itself. I can repeat the past. It’s not even past.”

“Does it feel better?” He asks again, gently rubbing circles with his thumb.

“You are repeating yourself,” he says, and leans into the touch.

The rain doesn’t stop, he doesn’t remember asking Nick what it means, as a writer, if it’s a metaphor or an alliteration.

 

*

 

Daisy, Daisy, Daisy. There must be a joke somewhere that he can’t remember. Her face is as bright as he can possibly wish for, and she dyed her hair golden.

Ah, yes. There’s the flower. She is the flower. She is among her natural habitat. She is looking at him as a flower would stare at a cloud. Can’t reach, not the same, who are you.

“I’m Gatsby,” he hears himself say, and so who are you turns to how.

“You have changed,” she says. She likes to understate things that don’t matter. “You still look very much like a rose.”

He flushes, opens his mouth, understands nothing. “I like your hair,” he says. “It is very beautiful.”

And it’s true, those daisies beside her are wonderful. She fills the image with the sun shining on the horizon. The rain continues. Where is Nick?

But then she talks some more, and he understands nothing more like a blind man reciting poetry to the light. Nick is somewhere. The rain ends with another thunder.

 

*

 

Nick is amused, if not somewhat damped.

“There could nuclear annihilation and all of you would still be talking,” he says. “I was making a parade outside with your machines. You didn’t noticed a bit.”

“Sorry,” he says. “Let me make you a spice latte. I will get you some towels.”

And so in that empty flower bed, they sit down and talk through the sounds of the busy streets, rushing to their jobs and so many more.

“It is very odd to be alone with you,” Nick says. “Don’t get me wrong, but this shop is always so full of people. A lot of them not very sober.”

“That grandma who orders vodka every morning would like you not to insult her, pumpkin,” he says, and realizing what he has just said, “wait, I—“

“That’s sweet of you, honey,” Nick says, smiling. “Relax, I like pumpkins.”

But that is not the point, he thinks, but lets it slip by just as well.

“So,” Nick says, poking the drink with the straw, looking down. “What she said?”

“Some good things,” he says. “Mostly about what happened in the past years.”

He hums. “That’s nice.”

“Yeah,” he says, noticing a wet tread of brown hair covering Nick’s face. He reaches to tuck it behind his ears just because, “Yeah, it’s nice.”

They spent the rest of the day sipping terrible drinks and tugging hairs. It’s nice.

 

*

 

He has never seen Tom, not like this. There are newspapers detailing his wealth and Reddit posts about his bigotry, but Daisy’s husband has never been important as a rival, or as a person.

But apparently he has the boring ability to hack information out of total strangers. Gatsby is not courting his wife, actually, he is a little less than a courtier, and more than a jester. Gatsby is talking to his wife like any men would talk to his wife.

“Tom has never read a book in his life,” she promises. At least Daisy is talking about his husband like any person would talk about Tom.

“Not even The Red Badge of Courage?” He says, voice conspicuously low. They are on the verge of laughing or falling down a precipice, it is difficult to say.

“Not even The Old Man and The Sea,” she giggles. “Everything he knows about the Twenties is the old money. He thinks the depression is caused by those corrupt new money buyers and greedy banks. Correlation and all, and we are all poor,” she laughs, a bell ring, and he can’t help but follow.

“It’s ridiculous,” he says. He can see Tom looking at him with wide eyes, then turning away. “Do you want a cocktail?”

“I will have a cappuccino, thank you, darling,” she says, her slender arms around his waist. “If I close my eyes, it seems that Prohibition is not over yet.”

“You can’t repeat the past,” he says jokingly, going reluctantly to the counter to make the coffee. She laughs some more, “Can’t repeat the past? Why, of course you can!” She says, her head resting on both of her hands. “If we can just go back, when you were not...” she trails off, gesturing in the wind, “we could have run away, but instead you wanted to change yourself like this. We could have been happy, Jasm– Jay.”

“...I wasn’t aware that my _choice_ has ruined your happiness, Daisy.” He says with an edge. “I have gave you three years, I could sell my whole business if you are willing to leave him. What more do you want?”

“Nothing,” she rests her head on the counter, and he thinks of Jordan, drunk and desolate, yet he is not in love with her. “Nothing more.”

The cappuccino is still hot when Tom has insisted that Daisy comes with him for dance, you’re my wife after all, and saying to her a little too loudly that this party is shitty anyway. Gatsby feels bad to agree with him.

 

*

 

“Oh hey,” Nick says. “Thought you were talking with my cousin.”

“Tom is here,” he says. And that explains all.

“You keep staring at that green dot,” Nick says, hands him a drink. “Every time you are on break, you keep coming back to Facebook as if you don’t know the existence of Instagram. It may be good literary blot, but that is certainly not how you love someone.”

“How do you know that I look at it every time I’m on break?” He says, taking the drink. “Thank you, but I don’t drink.”

“Told you, you don’t understand how to discern affection,” Nick declares simply. “A bootlegger that doesn’t drink, well, isn’t that precious.”

“My grandfather was,” he says. “I am just doing some honest business with coffee beans.”

“I always liked New York,” Nick ignores his previous statement and takes a sip of his alcohol, or coffee, or whatever. “The constant wavering of people, everyone pursuing something. A nice place to write.”

“My offer still stands, Nick,” he says, tapping his foot when the usual beats come up. “I can offer you anything I can afford. You have helped me so much.”

“Well then,” his friend tilts his head, “kiss me. We may be dead tomorrow, haven’t you heard?”

“Are you sure about that?” He says because, what, nobody knows why, it’s a reflex of a caught prey.

Nick grabs his tie and leans to his face. “I don’t know, do I look Daisy enough for you?”

Gatsby tucks Nic’s shirt, “Come,” he says, and leads him to a pool. No one is using it, it has rained all day, it needs cleaning. The moon is covered with fog typical of a summer’s day.

“I have never used the pool all summer,” he says. There are scars. They are reminders of the past.

“You might use it now,” Nick says. “As I was saying, we may be dead tomorrow.”

He takes off his shirt. The scars. Something too much of this. Nick lets off a gasp.

“You look good,” Nick says.

Gatsby hugs himself tighter now, because what the _fuck_ , “You don’t mind?”

“I don’t.”

And so Gatsby jumps in the pool and hopes he will be shot in the ribs before he will ever talk to Nick again. He breathes some leaves and dead bugs, and someone touches his arm in the deep water.

Nick kisses him, but maybe it’s the water, it’s soft, it’s disgusting, it slips from his lips. He thinks about Daisy and Tom making love to each other. Oh right, they have a daughter.

When they come out to the surface out of breath, Nick looks at him with an inquiry look. It beats on, restlessly, ceaselessly into the past. When he isn’t who he is. When he only has god to blame. A fragment of who he was is lost, and he thinks that Nick is anything but a fragment. He is whole, and he feels whole, too. His lips tasted like coffee and too sweet for it being alcohol.

“I gave you too much of that pumpkin latte, Nick,” he says.

“You know,” he answers a little too loudly. Nick is drunk, probably. “Your eyes are so, so green. And I keep staring at it.” He touches his lids, caressing them as if they are fragile. “I believed in you, in a orgastic future that year by year recedes before us, I kept thinking about it, Gatsby, how you were struck in the past and how it eludes you—“

“It’s no matter,” he says, leaning closer, “tomorrow will a fine morning,” and so he stretches his arms farther, one beat and a careless move ——

They meet in the middle.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Remembrance Day. 
> 
> So after all the prayers and synagogue visits during the day, I apparently remembered (conveniently) that this fic exists so suddenly now this is multi-chaptered? I don’t know, sorry for the quality of this. I typed it all out in one-go, with no plan whatsoever in my head. ~~If you would please yell at me in the comments, that would be absolutely wonderful. ~~~~~~  
>  ~~~~  
>  ~~Also Gatsby is very, terribly fucked in the head. His thought process is bullshit. Don’t do Gatsby, kids.~~  
> 

 

That whiskey lady is back, to Gatsby’s resignation.

Her teeth are scrapped, yet her face radiant. “I can see you’re very happy, young man.”

“Am I,” he says, his smile suddenly hard to suppress.

“You aren’t even frowning seeing that lady over there,” she points at Jordan’s direction. “Surely something good has happened. Reconciled with your girlfriend?”

“She’s not my girlfriend, madam,” he says respectfully, pouring a safe amount of liquor for an elderly woman in the early morning. I am too young to deal with that, he thinks. “Just had a good time with a friend, that’s all.”

She takes the whiskey, but mostly juice inside of it. “Oh, I know. Like how I used to have fun with Rosaline! We used to kiss under the mistletoe.”

“....He is not like your friend, madam.”

She shrugs, “Of course, it’s not Christmas yet, why would you do that?”

Gatsby, even seven feet from Jordan, can feel her eyes rolling from a distance.

“It’s not like that-“ he retorts, feeling ridiculous doing so. But she is already gone, drunk on nostalgia, really, mostly from the liquor.

To give credits to his brain, he spent the whole remaining of shift having something close to a gay crisis. Jordan, as usual, was sipping her own drink when he came to her, exhausted by the physical working and of his head.

“Having your first gay experience and feeling confused?” Jordan says, a book opening on her lap. “Then don’t talk to me, I don’t want to know anything about you.”

“Are you telling me that you’re here for my free coffee?”

Jordan blinks. “Uh, and wine?”

“Okay, that clears out.”

She stays silent for a while, finishing the last lines of her chapter. Closing it with one hand, she hands it to him. “Nick read it too. Maybe you should find something to talk about with him other things than licking each other’s mouths out.”

“ _The Well of Loneliness_ ,” he notes, turning the dust cover. It’s annotated in such a way that he can’t see through the words. “I see.”

 _I see_ can mean a lot. By meaning a lot he meant that he had read this when he was young and thought he was just an atypical girl and cried to an very typical bathroom for being a lesbian. Then typically with these kind of situations, the aftermath is that he cried more when he realized that it was not even true. He has been useless then, he will not stop now.

“Now that we have exchanged our daily cordial conversation, please gently fuck off,” she says. “We’ll see each other in the evening.”

“Daisy will be there?”

She nods. “Nick will be there too.”

“He told you what happened between us,” he says. It’s just an observation.

“Only the kissing part,” she assures him.

“There’s only the kissing part,” he says.

Jordan arches an eyebrow, clearly not believing him. Gatsby hopes that he could lie too. “Well then,” she waves her hand. “Good reading.”

And he is left with a very tired wrist and a worn out book. He would be lying if he is not about to cry, but he is accustomed to lies, and lies aren’t lies when no one believes you.

Like right now, when nobody’s watching, he cries in the worker’s bathroom. No one’s watching, it did not happen. If anyone’s watching, he would say, ‘it didn’t not happen’. Really, what is the use of telling the past? My past is different from my conception of me. So did it really happen? No, it didn’t. It didn’t, he thought, even mine is hidden, and would be a bastard to remember again.

It did not happen. See? I am not harming you.

 

*

 

“You realize that you’re being a bastard, right?”

It’s the night, and a party is going on. Instead of being a good host and take care of whatever vomit there is in the garbage can, he now faces Nick who’s frowning too much and with hatred seemingly directed at him.

“What?” He asks, because he has been stupid for his whole life and there’s no time thinking about change. “Nick, what’s wrong?”

His face is red with contempt. But Nick doesn’t seem to be preoccupied telling him what was exactly wrong with him. It remembers him of his therapist.

“Just tell me what is wrong with me,” he says, the taste of it familiar.

The party moves along as the music changes. Lions and wolfs quiet down at the waltz, at the jazz, and the wine. Nick is here too soon, he belongs to the class of spontaneity and craze, not the soft spoken words and whispers.

“Nothing’s wrong with you,” Nick passes a hand through his hair, weary.

“I don’t understand-“

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake! Can’t you see?” Nick exclaims, “Daisy’s my cousin.”

“Right.”

“Like, we share the same blood, in a unscientific way.”

“I still don’t-.”

“It means that if you want to fucking kiss my cousin,” Nick sighs, “Then don’t come and put that mouth on mine.”

Daisy’s black hair is on view, and he can’t risk that, no, no. “You remembered.”

Nick barks a laugh, “Of course I do.”

“Old sport,” he says, forgetting the promise and whatever that is. “It was a spontaneous thing. Surely you didn’t mean it. We can talk about it another time.”

“ _Right_ ,” Nick’s face is still red, but his eyes hardened. “We were drunk.”

He nods, his eyes already failing to focus. Daisy is coming, her husband trailing behind. With his heart hammering, and the music quickening to something like a soap opera, he takes Nick’s hand.

“Forgive me,” he whispers, and he holds it. Daisy doesn’t seem to notice. She greets them with an appropriate amount of enthusiasm and Tom, ah, less so.

His hand is sweating. Embarrassed, he tries to pull away, but Nick holds on tighter. That face is red anew, with something else than contempt this time around. But the light is dim on the dance floor, and suddenly everything is only wish thinking.

Daisy smiles to them, her eyes blooming. Gatsby wants nothing but to close his and die. It’s all too much, too much. “Is there something between my cousin and you, Jay?”

Tom looks a them, his eyes big and black under the yellow light, a slight twitch of his lips tells it all.

“That’s why you didn’t want to marry that girl from North Dakota, Nick,” Tom whistles. “What a regret for that poor girl. I heard she was very pretty.”

And Gatsby stares at Daisy, trying hard to find something, anything that resembles jealousy. There’s relief in the way her shoulder slag against Tom’s, so Gatsby lower his eyes, to keep them at bay.

Nick is silent, but that hand grips his like a lifeline. Daisy’s smile falters a little, but Gatsby didn’t saw it. It didn’t happen.

“Dating?” She says, testing the waters.

Nick looks at him, everything seems concealed under that yellow light. He opens his mouth calmly, “No-“

“Yes,” Gatsby says a little louder than him, as their sounds all drown to music anyway. “We’re dating.”

“That’s wonderful!” Daisy claps her hands to his. Gatsby relieved of his intertwined hands with Nick. Her face is cheerful, and he couldn’t help but feeling like a complete liar. “That’s a wonderful, wonderful thing, Jay. I’m happy to have found a good person for my darling cousin.”

And she turns to Nick, who’s frowning ever so slightly. A weight settles in his stomach, soft and aching. “Oh, Nick, you must tell me about it! How it happened-“

To Gatsby’s growing panic, Daisy is leading Nick away. He was going to follow them when a strong hand rested on his shoulder. It’s Tom.

The music switches fast; some rock band is playing. The incessant thud of the beat and the chest.

“I have a question, mister Gatsby.”

“I’m all ears,” he says, ignoring how the smile feels like stretching his skin a little too far.

“I’d like to know,” Tom drawls, “why he choose a woman like you,” he smiles politely, continues with brutality. “A woman of such taste as she hangs out in tux and talks rich.”

“I see that you’re going straight to the point, old sport,” he says, carefully backing a step.

“Look,” Tom concedes. “I am not a bad man. I don’t go find other people’s dirt for laughs. You were too close to my wife, that’s all. A man ought to protect his wife, right?” He laughs, “Not that you would understand— _Jasmine_.”

“Don’t call me _that_.”

“You know,” Tom continues, taking a cocktail from a moving tray, “My wife used to tell me how her friend Jasmine was. That she was pretty like a rose,” he turns his head to him, tilts it. “What a waste.”

 _You sound just like my mother_ , is what he doesn’t say. But he knows, and he understands. There’s nothing worse than to understand people’s intended insults. He told them to himself in the past, they don’t hurt anymore than the slight pitch of a shell, now.

He used to think of that Anderson tale- it’s been such a long time ago- about him changing his tail for something greater- but he must bear the sacrifice, and must walks like it doesn’t hurt to dance.

“I would punch you,” Gatsby says. “But you wouldn’t want to fight with someone like me, surely, old sport?”

“Just stay in your place. Stay away from my wife. I wouldn’t care more about your transvestite business, if you stay cordial with her like a man. Surely you can do that for her sake, would you?”

Tom is not a very handsome man, but he is not ugly either. So there’s a growing sense of satisfaction when his fist hits that very average face. Until Tom hits back, that is.

And so the little mermaid turns to bubbles, dissolving under the sea, devouring him whole.

 

*

 

Jordan is in her usual place, this time her nose on her phone, smiling.

When she looks up, her smile disappears, replacing one with a very mild irony. “Whatever you’re going to say, I’m just going to tell you that it was objectively very stupid.”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” he admits, rubbing his black-eye, winces as he do so. “Texting someone?”

“We’re just friends,” she says quickly.

“Okay,” he says, and they couldn’t help but to laugh at each other. Jordan with her not-very-friend-friend, and his black-eye. He can’t even tell what’s worse.

“Okay, spill, Romeo. Wherefore ‘twas blood on thy moonlit face?”

“Uh,” he grimaces, “Tom?”

“Oh my god,” she says, hey eyes finally moving away from the screen. “Did you win at least?”

“Uh, yes? I fainted, so I have no idea.”

“That’s not in my definition of winning.”

“At least I landed a punch,” he mumbles. Jordan rolls her eyes and continues to text her definitely not friend friend. “What are you texting?”

“That a stupid man got wrecked in his own party,” she says without looking. “Go back to work. I want another expresso, thanks.”

When he does, though, Nick is in the line. The expresso spills on his hand, and aside from a burn, he also has to remake it.

“Can you make the orders?” He asks Owl-Eyes. “I have to redo an expresso that I dropped.”

So he gladly turned his back to Nick and escaped reality for hopefully one day more.

But since everything seems to be against him, Nick stayed. He stayed for the whole shift. He has a computer, and like everyone with a computer in an alleged coffee shop, they stay for way too long with only one order.

Owl-Eyes comes back with a glint in his eyes.

“They talked about you, it’s funny.”

Gatsby barely looks up from his order, “Who?”

“That old woman who drinks whiskey and a young man. You should have seen it, they were pretty entertaining.”

“Everyone talks about me in a way that’s entertaining, sir.”

“Oh no,” Owl-Eyes cleans his glasses with those golden rims. “It’s nothing like that. You should have seen it.”

Gatsby shuts up and silently delivers the two-third juice with one percent whisky order that he knows she loves. Owl-Eyes grabs it and is gone in a stride.

Nick stares at him when he finishes serving the last client. He closes his computer.

“We need to talk,” he says.

Gatsby takes in the dark circles under Nick’s eyes. That weight under him has doubled in size. He never liked mistakes, that’s why he never do anything to initiate anything that might lead to them. And yet he is, now, as always, starting another. It’s tiresome, having something wrong in you and be the mistake yourself.

Nick seems to drink him in too, his eyes sober and cool and composed.

“I will give you a ride,” Gatsby says, and grabs his keys without hearing the answer. “Let’s go.”

 

*

 

People leave, he realizes. He has realized this a long time ago. He thought they wouldn't leave when he’d stop telling them what he thinks, but then they leave still as many, still as quickly. He has given up on keeping them eventually, like his mother, but then she dies. Everyone does.

Maybe it’s him, because she couldn’t see him without screaming. Maybe it’s her, because she just couldn’t accept that everything is somehow wrong in him, and there’s nothing she could do about it.

“I’m sorry,” he says when he turns on the car. “I’ll tell her the truth when Daisy comes to the party, you needn’t worry.”

He fixes at some white point on the horizon. The wheel on his hand turns, but he is hardly aware of it.

“How’s your wound?”

“You know about it?” He asks quietly, not without some shame.

“God, I carried you to your room myself. You weights like nothing, you know that?”

Gatsby keeps staring at the point, secretly hope he gets simultaneously blind and hit by a car.

“That’s not the point,” Nick says forcefully. “That’s- not what I wanted to ask.”

“Look,” Nick starts with some exasperation seeping through his voice. “I just- I don’t understand. You love her, right? Everything would have been fine if you’d just let me answered no.”

“I love her,” he says, a little incredulous. There’s a red light. Nick’s face contorts on the glass. “Oh god, of course I love her.“

“That’s right, so why-“

“I love her, Nick, but I also love the way- I don’t know- how she makes me feel like I am in the past again, but without all the- all the problems that come with it,” he says. “Does that make sense?”

Nick looks tired, even more so than that time when his eyes wandered on him at their first encounter. “I don’t recall any time where you don’t, Jay. I don’t doubt your love. I just want to know why you said yes.”

Gatsby could have lied, so he did, “I don’t know.”

Nick settles on his seat, his head thrown back. The light flashes green, “Not that I think it’s not convincing at all, but you have to know that it’s very difficult to tell her the truth without sounding like a total dick, yes? She likes you.”

“I don’t think so,” he says. “She doesn’t seem bothered by the idea of us dating.”

“Tom is surprisingly okay with it too.”

“He prefers that than me lusting after his wife, that’s all.”

Nick doesn’t seem to want to comment on that. Silence dominates the car like plague, until he remembers that in order to get hit by a car he needs to distract himself from proper care of the road, “My coworker said that you talked about me.”

“Uh?” Nick says, “Ah, yes. We did. She was a very nice lady. A little odd, though.”

“Why?”

“She said that I must be like Rosaline to you,” he says. “Do you know any Rosaline?”

“I don’t,” Gatsby says, sighing in relief that they are almost there, “but she is probably right.”

After that, they arrived, unfortunately without any car crash. They stayed in the car for awhile, none of them knows why, or needs to say it out loud, anyway. “There’s another thing, Nick,” he says, breaking the silence.

He shows him the book; that annotated and worn-out book. “Jordan told you that you have read it.”

Nick takes it, inspects it through the old print. “Ah, right, Hall’s lesbian Bible. Why?”

“I don’t know, she inquired me to tell you about it.”

“Do try to remember this: even the world's not so black as it is painted,” Nick quotes. “And that’s all that I remember.”

“It is better than your father’s advice on not judging people?” Gatsby says lightly, liking the way Nick’s fingers look, how slender. He glances away. The sky is already dark.

“Better than anything anyone has ever told me,” Nick says. Gatsby chuckles with some difficulty. A pan of guilt and something else. “What’s wrong?”

“No, no, it’s just-“ he says in between the tears that spurred from it, “you’re so- so honest, old sport. I have never seen anyone as honest as you.”

“It’s one of my only virtues,” Nick smiles shyly, as self-conscious people do, “honesty is the one thing that holds me together.”

Maybe it’s because it’s hazy, maybe it’s because he had an excuse, Gatsby covered his hand on Nick’s. The one still holding the book, the one where the fingers were slender and long. The one, he thinks, where I think of nothing at all.

“Then tell me the truth, Nick,” he whispers, the skin beneath him trembling ever so slightly. “Did I make you sad?”

“Why would you make me sad?”

It’s getting colder. He shivers despite himself.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“It’s just,” Nick admits, “it’s sad to see.”

“See _what_?”

He shrugs, detaching himself away from him. Only the book was beneath his hand, now. “Loving the past is a terrible thing.”

A beat, then, “That’s all?”

“Yes?”

Gatsby couldn’t help but laugh again. His eyes dried from the cold breeze.

“Oh, forgive me,” he says, breathless. “For I have thought- I _thought_ -“

Nick’s cheek hollows on one side. He is chewing on it. “What, that I was in love with you?”

“Yes!” He exclaims, dreads on by some incredible, last strength left in his heart. “By god, for me to even have thought of that! Of course you wouldn’t, after all that I have told you. That time we were drunk, old sport.” He smiles ironically, his eyes distant and remembering. “You don’t even like men, I have figured. If you see me as one, that is. You probably mistaken me for a woman when you were intoxicated beyond repair- and it’s alright, really I get it. I was often told so.”

And he looks at him straight in the eyes, and says with some tired mirth left in his chest. “I was a fool. I even told you what is wrong in me. How can you possibly have anything for me other than begrudged friendship after that? I was a fool, god, forgive me. I’m sorry to even have thought-“

He stops in his tracks, frozen in mid speech. He barely had the time to register Nick’s sad and surprised eyes when he hear himself talk ever so quickly, but weak in nature. Even he seems confused at his own words, but he keeps talking anyway; a broken fiddle, playing and breaking at the same time.

“Ah- of course, I am not saying that you’re anything but worthy. In fact, if you want to rethink about the offer I made to you back in July, it’s always valid, Nick. I think you’re a wonderful writer.”

“Jay-“

“I know,” he says quickly, sweating a little under that gray, gray sky. “I know, I know. You wouldn’t want that. But I owe you so much, old sport. You must need something-“

“I don’t need anything,” he snaps, his eyes ablaze. “Listen to me, Jay-“

“How about a loan check? Without interests, of course. I know you wouldn’t want money, but I can’t offer you much. Get some actions of some large corporate business, the risk on me. Nick-“

“Oh my god, _yes_ ,” Nick says, his eyes glowing. And Gatsby was finally going to breathe until he hears the rest of the sentence, “ _yes_ , Jay, I am in love with you. For all that is good and holy, believe me when I say that I like you in a very, _very_ gay way.”

Gatsby is rarely proud of himself for doing anything, but he sure as hell is when he manages not to choke on his own tongue.

“Uh,” he makes a sound, tried to find anything that might result to an elaborate prank. “Was that a yes for the loan check?”

“No,” Nick says, taking a step toward him, “this is not in Victorian England. I can’t say the word gay now without alluding to the other meaning.”

“There’s nothing wrong being gay.”

“Then there would be nothing wrong being a man either.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“You’re so fucked in the head,” Nick declares, and used his very sober, very clean and not post-vomit mouth to put it on his.

Now, even he has to admit that it’s not disgusting. It’s sweet, oh god, it’s so sweet, it’s lovely, and makes his head turn. Maybe he really got hit in the head, after all.

Nick stares at him, his lips a little red and swollen from the kiss. “Now, can you believe my very conscious method of telling you how gay I am?”

To be fair, he couldn’t very much hear what the hell he is saying over the incessant whirling of his tongue and thoughts and everything. He hopes he doesn’t look too much like a disaster. “Ah, yes?”

“Good,” Nick says, and quickly steps back a little. His hands are shaking. “I- I’m sorry.” He says, and he looks down. “I didn’t planned for it to end like that. But you’re so fucked in the head and wouldn’t believe anything I said, so partly it’s on you.”

“Don’t answer anything,” Nick says, covering his face with one hand. He realizes that Nick blushes very easily, and so is he.

“I won’t,” he lies. “Do you want me to go now?”

Nick doesn’t answer; he supposes it’s answer enough. Silence is always so damn oppressive, it can’t drown out the questions in his head and wouldn’t offer him answers. Silence is a bastard that keeps turning on itself.

“Jay,” Nick says, before he turns to go. “Come to Tom’s home tomorrow. What you will say about us- that is up to you, but please come tomorrow. She will be there.“

“Of course she would be there, she lives there.”

“I meant her daughter,” he says. “You would love to see her.”

“Oh,” he pauses, “I would,” he says, and remembers Daisy has a daughter. He thinks of her swelling belly when he was in Oxford, in the war, away at the seas and the trenches. “I would love to see her.”

Nick stumbles a little when he reaches for his door. He doesn’t look back, and really, it’s a good thing. He wouldn’t want to see a grown man with an old book breaking as the wind turns left. Pieces and pieces and pieces. The wind turns right again.

 

*

 

Daisy is alone when he arrived. She greets him with her usual way; marveled and in awe at something Gatsby can’t seem to see.

“Where’s Tom?”

“Oh, don’t be bad and let’s not talk about him,” she giggles, her arms lace with his. “He’s supposed to be here at any moment now, why won’t you keep it before that?”

He obeys; hopes he does not wince when Daisy’s hand touches his lids. The black-eye. It burns a little, his cheeks too.

“Listen, I’m very glad to see you, darling,” she purrs, inviting him to sit on the couch, “you must tell me all about it- it’s been awhile since we talked about it.”

“Yes?” He turns his head, searching for her daughter- what was her name again? “What is it?”

“Oh, but Nick! Who else I am going to talk about! I rarely see him in such a state of infatuation,” she says, and by lowering her voice, she looks up at him with tears. “Ah, I am so happy! I can hardly believe it! Listen, Jay- I have never been happier. I feel like I could dance.”

They share a laugh. “I’m being ridiculous,” says Daisy, dabbing her eyes.

“You’re being happy,” he corrects her, the weight of it all lessens with her laughter. “It’s good.”

_You’re good._

“You were very unhappy in the past,” she says. “It’s good to see you here. We could be a family, god, can you imagine that? I’m being funny, you and Nick had only started dating...”

Oh yes, he thinks, I imagined that and ever since the first time we met. “I have never seen your daughter,” he says instead, as he hopes it is proper for him to ask, “may I see her?”

“Ah-ah!” She claps her hands. “But of course! Pammy!” She cries, “Where’s the nanny?”

Heavy steps and an middle aged woman appears with a child. Daisy coos, “Come here, come to mommy; Pammy!”

That child clenches the nanny’s leg. Hesitantly, she steps forward. Her big doe eyes stare right at Gatsby. He smiles, “Hello.”

That little girl rushes to her mother, her head nuzzling her neck. It almost felt too intimate to watch. “Oh don’t be shy, Pammy,” Daisy says, her arms uncomfortably settling on her child’s back. “C’mon, say hello to your uncle Nick’s friend!”

There’s so much wrong in that one sentence, but the only sound he can make is, “Hello.” He is not blaming her, really, if he is not her friend, nor Nick’s boyfriend. Either of these two choices would refer to something too difficult for a child to digest.

The child looks up, and like a frightened animal upon order, she waves her hand. He waves back just the same.

“She’s lovely,” he comments. “I—“

“Daisy!” A voice interrupts abruptly. That child hides behind her mother, her little head shaking. Tom stops in his steps. His face has one side that’s a little too yellow to be natural.

“What is Gatsby doing here?”

“You haven’t heard?” She says light-heartedly. “Nick told us yesterday that Jay’s going to be with us today! Aren’t they lovely? Ah- come here, Nick, come here, darling cousin.”

Nick is not terribly tall, but he is unmistakably there behind Tom, his brown hair disheveled in a way that make Gatsby’s eyes turn to the child instead. Nick smells like the first morning rain. His shirt is slightly damp.

“Jay,” Nick greets, he stretches his hand to him.

“Nick,” he grins, taking it, thinking that it might be a custom already. “You’re a terrible, terrible person.”

And he knows, he knows what Nick is trying to tell him. He is saying: look there, here’s a happy family. That she is happily married; that the little girl is lovely with her two parents, and none of them being you.

And he laughs at the picture of a family laying out before him. “What a fool I was,” he says.

“A beautiful, little fool,” Daisy pitched his nose in a moment of playfulness. “I would love to my little Pammy to grow up like you.”

Nick sits right beside him, as he is prone to do. Drunk in boldness before the scene, he turns to whisper to Nick, “Guess what,” he says. “I’m not giving up.”

“On whom?”

“Everyone,” he says. Nick laughs like a young man, and he is, really, under the terrible burden of destiny, laughing like the city’s most prominent young man, ambitious to the bits.

“I look forward to it,” Nick says, and for the rest of the evening, the weight on his shoulder is featherlike, a great deal of nothing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Gatsby’s trans experience is different from some, and it’s certainly not universal. I drew it more from his background (i.e: growing up poor, living a midwestern life during his childhood) than from a more collective trans story (if it even exists in the first place). 
> 
> • _The Well of Loneliness _by Hall is basically the Lesbian Bible and has been for a long while the golden book among queer readers. It’s less known nowadays, but still very much in print. (Can you see that I am going for a promo here).__  
>  __  
>  _Thank you for reading!_  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> hey  
> please yell at me i would really appreciate it!!


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